


In Every Family

by bearbaitbrook



Series: On Every Page [4]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Office, Editor Betty Cooper, F/M, Family Drama, Meet the Family, Writer Jughead Jones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27640871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearbaitbrook/pseuds/bearbaitbrook
Summary: There were three things that Betty Cooper was certain about:1. She was madly in love with Jughead Jones.2. Her mother, Alice Cooper, was the world's most passive-aggressive control freak3. When Alice Cooper found out that her daughter was dating Jughead Jones, she would desperately want to meet the man who had won her daughter's heart, ostensibly to give Jughead her seal of approval, but actually to find and judge every way that Jughead wasn't good enough for her daughter, and Betty would do just about anything to prevent that meeting from happening.Betty and Jughead talk family.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Series: On Every Page [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993057
Comments: 11
Kudos: 71





	In Every Family

There were two things that Betty Cooper was certain about: 

  1. She was madly in love with Jughead Jones, head editor of On Every Page Publishing Company and author of a recently published novel, and she didn't know if she could ever stop.
  2. Her mother, Alice Cooper, was the world's most passive-aggressive control freak who sent Betty's anxiety through the roof everytime she made a pilgrimage to her hometown of Riverdale.



The presence of these two items in her "Things Elizabeth is Certain About" list required that she add a third item to the list:

3\. When Alice Cooper found out that her daughter was dating Jughead Jones, she would desperately want to meet the man who had won her daughter's heart, ostensibly to give Jughead her seal of approval, but actually to find and judge every way that Jughead wasn't good enough for her daughter, and Betty would do just about anything to prevent that meeting from happening.

It wasn't that Betty was ashamed of Jughead - it was far from that, actually. He was, far and away, the best boyfriend that Betty had ever had - smart, driven, slightly snarky, yes, but with a heart of gold. And he loved her more than anything else in the world. There were times, when she sat at her desk at On Every Page, that she felt his eyes on her, and when she looked up, the look of love on his face took her breath away.

She loved him in a way that she couldn't even fathom sometimes. The amount of comfort, safety and encouragement she found everyday in his arms was everything that she had ever hoped to find and more, and when she looked at him, it was easy to imagine having this together, forever. 

So she could most definitely say that she was far from ashamed of her boyfriend. It was her mother that she was worried about.

Alice Cooper was the classic helicopter parent through Betty's childhood. Giving anything less than 110% at anything was unacceptable - 'We are Coopers, Elizabeth, and Coopers do better than that,' - collars should always be stiffly starched and carbs were strictly forbidden. All in the name of maintaining the Stepfordian facade of Cooper perfection firmly in place over the four bed, three bath, white picket fence home on Elm Street. Growing up, Betty had been a straight A, straight-laced child with an inability to say no (or at least her mother had an inability to let her say anything but 'yes') and a penchant for digging her fingernails into her palms to deal with her mother's over-abundant desires for perfection. She was expected to graduate from high school as Valedictorian, go to an Ivy League college (preferably in New York so Alice could still stick her nose into Betty's business whenever she strayed too far from the course), and become a Pulitzer winning journalist, while also marrying rich - an investment banker or something of the like - and popping out 2.5 kids by the time she was twenty-five.

To say that Alice Cooper was disappointed when Betty took a different life path was an understatement. Betty's decision to go to Yale instead of NYU was met with many a lecture about the benefits of living near home, but Alice eventually let it go, recognizing that Betty could have easily chosen to move across the country. She had threatened to cut Betty off when she found out that Betty was majoring in English instead of journalism, and she actually stopped talking to Betty altogether for a month when Betty found an editing position at On Every Page - Betty had enjoyed the period of silence between her and her mother, and had been rather disappointed when it came to the end and her mother's incessant nagging resumed. 

Before Betty met Jughead, there had been a series of 'young, gentleman callers' that Alice had set Betty up with- all bankers, doctors and the like - like Betty was some helpless Southern debutante instead of an independent woman, capable of living her life without a relationship. She knew that her mother did love her, although she showed it in funny ways sometimes, and so Betty had put up with it, begrudgingly allowing these men to take her to dinner, put her to sleep with their boring and self-centered conversations before the main course, and ending the evening with a kiss to the cheek and a half-hearted 'this was nice!' This all came to a screeching halt when Betty met Jughead, though. She had managed to put off her mother's attempts to set her up for months - 'I'm busy with a work event that night… I mean that week… I mean that month' or 'sorry, Mom, I feel like I'm coming down with something, tell Jimmy I have to reschedule' - but after eight months of this, Betty knew that Alice was beyond suspicious.

"Betts, just tell her about me," Jughead said calmingly after Alice attempted yet another setup about eight months into their relationship.

"Jughead, I love you, more than anything. And because I love you, I am going to do whatever I can to keep you away from my mother."

"C'mon, baby, is she really that bad?" Betty just stared at him, and he backtracked. "Ok, she's that bad. But I have tough skin - I put up with Ethel everyday, don't I? I can handle Alice Cooper."

"Ethel has nothing on my mother, Jug."

"It'll be ok," he replied. "What is so bad about your mother?"

Betty snorted. "What's so bad about my mother? I mean, nothing besides the fact that she thinks she needs to be in absolute control of every decision that I make about my life. She won't like you - I can tell you that with almost absolute certainty - because you wear flannel and a beanie when we aren't in the office and you have a few tattoos."

She stood from the couch, where she had been perched in Jughead's lap, and began pacing around her living room. 

"It doesn't matter that you have published a book, a very successful book, might I add, and that you are the lead editor of a publishing firm. No, because you were not one of the eligible bachelors that my mother sent to me. So she will absolutely hate you, and she will be passive aggressively nice to you to your face - not actually nice, mind you, and trust me, it will be very clear to you, beneath her polite Stepford smile, exactly what she thinks of you, and as soon as you're out of the room, she will let me know exactly what she thinks of you."

She placed faster, her hands curling into fists, a bittersweet bite piercing her palms. Jughead stood up, alarmed, and quickly crossed the room, unraveling her hands and joining them with his. The look in his eyes was gentle and understanding as he spoke.

"Baby, I don't care what your mother thinks of me. I'm in love with you, not her. I'm choosing to spend my life with you, not Alice Cooper."

"But Jug," Betty cried out, "every single visit we ever make to my mother's it will be like this, don't you see? Every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, every Easter, every obligatory birthday gathering, she will make it crystal clear how much she dislikes you while being sickly sweet and nice to your face. What if one day…" she paused, a lump forming in her throat that she struggled to speak around. "What if one day you decide you can't handle that anymore? That you want a normal family instead of the passive aggressive mess that comes with me?"

Instead of responding, he pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly. After a moment, she relaxed to the steady rhythm of his hands stroking up and down her back.

"I've never told you about my family, really, have I?" he asked finally.

"Not really… only that they split up when you were a teenager and your mom left with your sister and that you spent a lot of time with Archie because of it."

"I may have left some things out…" He led them back over to her couch and sat them down. He gripped Betty's hands tightly. "I grew up in a trailer park on the bad side of town. There was never enough money. Work was hard to find for my mom and my dad, and anything they managed to bring in either went towards bill's or towards my dad's alcohol fund. I remember some nights I would be so cold because the gas had been shut off again, or days at school when I would skip lunch to make sure that JB had enough to eat instead. There would be nights when he would come home drunk out of his mind and I would hundle in bed with JB while they screamed and thew shit at each other. She left with JB after the first time that he hit her, and she left me behind. My own mother, Betty, left me behind with a sometimes violent, alcoholic father, who could barely function, let alone pay the bills and take care of his son."

There were tears in her eyes. "Jug…"

"I stayed with him for two years before I had enough. I knew that my mom was staying with her parents in Toledo with JB, so I called and asked if I could move in with her. And you know what she said? 'Now's not really a good time, Jug.' Not a good time to take care of her own son… so I moved in with Archie and his dad, and I graduated from high school and I got the hell out of that town, and away from that life."

"I am so sorry, Jug," Betty whispered, her heart breaking for the man in front of her. "You deserve so much more than that."

"So I don't care, Betty, if your mom doesn't like me, ok? I have lived with much worse. I learned a long time ago that blood doesn't make you family. I chose Archie as my family, and now I'm choosing you. And that is never going to stop, ok? So call your mom and pick a weekend for us to visit, and let her do her worst. I choose you, and I will always choose you, regardless of what your mother says. Always."

She just gives him a grateful, if somewhat teary eyed smile and buries her face in his neck while he holds her tightly. 

"Ok, here it goes," she said, sitting up with a sniff.

***

The conversation went better than expected. Alice was, understandably, surprised, but graciously invited Betty and Jughead to visit the following weekend. 

They make the drive together, passing the hours with episodes of their latest true crime podcast obsession. Alice was… Alice… from the minute that she opened the door. Her face had noticeably blanched at Jughead's beanie and the tattoo that was just barely visible, sticking out from the sleeve of his tshirt, before she slipped back into hostess mode.

To her credit, the Cooper smile never wavered on her face once - not while Betty and Jughead explained how they met, not when Jughead gave a truncated version of his family history, not even when Betty insisted that Jughead was staying with her, rather than in the guest room like Alice had planned.

He told Betty later that he found her mother infuriating at levels he had never experienced before, but had managed to keep his cool when Alice tried to set Betty up on another date right in front of him and through multiple insinuations that Betty worked the wrong job, and wore the wrong clothes.

What finally made him snap, though, was Alice's comments about Betty's eating habits. Betty was very used to eating lighter when she visited her mother, a survival tactic that Jughead was unaware of. So when Jughead made Betty a piece of toast for breakfast, like he did every morning that they were together, and Alice's "should you  _ really  _ be eating that, Elizabeth," was met by Betty dropping the toast to pick at a grapefruit half instead, he saw red.

"Betty can eat whatever she wants," he said firmly, giving Alice a look that clearly said 'fight me on this, I dare you.' He saw all hopes of ever getting along with Alice go flying out the window.

So he was especially surprised when Alice said, as they prepared to leave to go back to the city, "Take care of my daughter, Jughead. I'll see  _ both  _ of you next month for my birthday, understood?"

"I guess she likes you," Betty mused as he backed her car out of the driveway. "Are you ready to be part of Alice Cooper's family circle?"

"As long as I get to be in it with Betty Cooper, sign me up."

**Author's Note:**

> I always struggle to write Alice Cooper... so hopefully you think I did her justice! I still have a few more ideas for this universe, so keep an eye out!
> 
> Please leave kudos and comments, they seriously make my day.


End file.
